What are daycare centers?
Daycare centers are licensed child care programs that are not in a home but in a stand-alone location. Daycare centers are businesses that employ direct caretakers or teachers and administrative staff like a director. They usually have multiple classrooms for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.
What are the benefits of daycare centers?
Daycare centers offer a number of benefits to families that distinguish them from other types of child care. Some parents may prefer daycare in a home for their babies due to the cozier atmosphere. Other families prefer daycare centers because of the stability and reliability that these programs have to offer. These parents may appreciate the peace of mind that comes with knowing that the program will be open and running on a predictable schedule, providing high-quality care.
While there are many benefits of home or family daycare for young children, daycare centers can also be a great option for parents who value some of these major benefits that centers have to offer.
Daycare centers offer locations close to work
One big benefit of daycare centers is that it is often located close to places where people work. Many larger companies will even have centers within their buildings that are open to employees only. These centers are often run by child care chains like Bright Horizons or Kindercare.
There are a lot of benefits to having your child’s care program be close to your work rather than your home. Importantly, if there is an issue during the day you can respond quickly and immediately. Do you have a sick child? You’ll want to be able to get them quickly in case of this type of emergency. A daycare center close to your work makes this much easier.
And if the program is really close it allows the opportunity for parents to visit the child during the day. This can be especially helpful for breastfeeding mothers. If the daycare is close enough, she can breastfeed her baby at the program and reduce the number of pumping sessions needed each day.
Daycare centers provide reliability
Daycare centers offer, first and foremost, stability and reliability. Have you ever had a big presentation at work only to have you family child care provider close because she is sick? Barring major events, child care centers will be open, on time and at the schedule you expect. When a teacher is sick at a child care center, they will have a policy to get substitute teachers so that they can continue to provide care.
Part of what you are paying for with the higher rates that daycare centers charge is this type of reliability. They’ll be open when they say they’ll be open, with qualified caregivers or teachers, and you can count on that. If you have a baby, this is an added comfort, one less thing to worry about when it comes to your child’s care.
Small class sizes are more common at daycare centers
Class sizes in daycare centers are limited by each state’s licensing guidelines. A daycare center will typically have multiple classrooms for each age group. Class sizes for babies are usually the smallest, and for preschoolers the highest. In many states, there are guidelines that there be one teacher for every four babies in a classroom. These small class sizes, or teacher-child ratios, ensure that your child will get personal attention and care at a center.
Some daycare centers specialize in infant and toddler care. These centers will often go above and beyond the recommended class sizes. They may require one teacher for every two to three children. Centers with low teacher-child ratios typically will have a strong focus on quality and personal care for young children. Hold on to your pocketbooks, however! Low teacher-child ratios come at a cost. Centers that go above and beyond what is required usually charge more for that level of care.
The quality of care is high
Daycare programs of all types can be high-quality. There is no one type of care that is necessarily better than others. One benefit of going with a daycare center for your child is that the size and stability make it a bit easier for a center to maintain quality care.
Daycare centers typically are eager to meet their state’s standards for high-quality child care. That means they will take the time and invest the money to ensure that their teachers are receiving the training and education needed to be considered high-quality.
Centers also often have more money to invest in the physical space of the program. That can mean better playground equipment, more spacious rooms, quality instructional materials, and safe and comfortable spaces for babies to play in.
Daycare centers use a curriculum
Whether it is a Reggio Emilia or a Montessori, daycare centers often use a specific approach or curriculum that they use when teaching or caring for children. A benefit of larger centers is that they can train and professionally develop teachers on the curriculum. Some approaches, like Montessori, require extensive teacher training and certification.
Young children who start at daycare centers with a specific curriculum benefit from being able to grow up with that curriculum as they become toddlers and preschoolers. This can be a wonderful experience for them to fully absorb the benefits of the curriculum before they begin school. And some curricula, Montessori is a good example, are also used in elementary schools. This means they may be able to continue on with that approach as they age out of child care.
Daycare centers offer a variety of of programs
One benefit of the larger size of daycare centers is that they are able to offer more specialized programs than smaller family-based programs. Many daycare centers will have special programs that children can participate in throughout the day. These might include dance, music, or language classes. While many of these extra classes are targeted at toddlers or preschoolers, music classes are a great option for kids of all ages.
Daycare centers may have pre-k and kindergarten options
Many states have instituted pre-Kindergarten (pre-K) programs that help children around ages 4 or 5 get ready for school. They types of programs are usually publicly funded and often located with public schools. In a number of places, however, child care centers can be licensed to provide pre-K programming for children. If you’re a parent of a young child looking for care, this can be a fantastic long-term benefit. It means your child can stay in the same program until they start school without foregoing any of the benefits that pre-K programs have to offer.
What are the drawbacks of daycare centers?
While daycare centers offer a number of benefits for families they certainly aren’t the right option for every family. Some families might find that the strengths of daycare centers aren’t what they prioritize in a child care program. The weaknesses of daycare centers tend to come in the areas of cost and convenience. For families that put an emphasis on those two factors, a daycare center may not be a good option.
Daycare centers can be expensive
One of the biggest weaknesses of daycare centers tends to be the cost. Daycare centers are one of the most expensive types of child care available, with only nannies being more expensive. While the average cost of toddler daycare in 2022 was not more than family child care those costs can vary drastically based on region. One the East and West coasts of the United States, families can find that the cost at daycare centers is as much as two to three times that much. Families that live in those regions of the country will often find that family child care is much less expensive.
Daycare centers are especially expensive for infants. The cost of infant care in the coastal regions of the United States is frequently up to and even exceeds $2000 a month. For families with multiple children, this may constitute the biggest line item cost in their budget. For these families, daycare centers may not be a feasible option.
Daycare center policies may be inconvenient
This flipside of the stability that daycare centers provide is that their policies may be too rigid for some families. For instance, many daycare centers provide no part-time option. For those daycare centers that do, often parents find they still have to pay the full-time rate regardless. Additionally, many daycare centers do not allow families to attend for only part of the year. This can make them unappealing options for families where one parent does not work twelve months a year. Teachers are a good example of this type of worker.
Finally, daycare centers are often very difficult to get into for babies. Many parents put their infant on a waiting list at a daycare center only to find that they don’t get a spot until their child is a toddler. By that time, they’ve already secured other child care and don’t want to disrupt that situation if it is going well. It is often a challenge when the family has a second child. The older child may now have a spot, yet there is no space for a younger child, meaning that the family might need to have children in different daycare programs.